A Long Life
by Lancelotlaureate
Summary: Dorian Gray and the Doctor aren't so different. (Doctor Who/The Confessions of Dorian Gray crossover)


We are running. Oh so fast we run. I feel I'm that little bit faster than he and as we turn a corner to safety, I realise that we are very close to oblivion. Not that oblivion and horrible destruction means that much to me anymore. Not after all these years. I doubt it means that much to him either being a Time Lord. Yes that's what he calls himself-a Time Lord.

He's a strange person, the Doctor. In all his bodies he's peculiar and this one with me now is no exception. He's skinnier than the others and he's younger too and wears converse sneakers. He talks too much and thinks himself superior. And yes I know I think myself superior but I actually am.

When we'd first met, this version of the Doctor and me, it was hours earlier. As I found myself so often surrounded by the things of our world most people never dream of, he too was the same, encircled by monsters and demons, shrouded in a wave of mystery. Being immortal it's hard to find anyone who would understand the highs and lows, the joy and the sorrow of long life but this Doctor did understand because he seemed to keep on going when everyone else around him decayed and withered and died before his very eyes, painfully and without mercy.

He'd died many times, or so he'd told me, and I may not have believed it if it wasn't for the fact we'd already met twice before in my long life. The first time was back in 1909, when no one would have questioned those clothes he wore- the cane, the cloak, the monocle. Everything made him appear an Edwardian gentleman and who was I to assume otherwise?

"Ah, there you are Mr. Gray," he said as I came into the library. He was seated in a leather wingback chair in the gentleman's club and he held a thick dusty book in his hands which he carefully stroked with his wrinkled fingers, so different to my own smooth and unblemished skin.

"You requested my company, Doctor?" I said, unsure of his intentions or how this supposed doctor knew me. Granted my reputation grew in recent years but still he hardly seemed the type to react to gossip.

He smiled at me and motioned for me to sit down and I obliged. "You have been brought to my attention my dear young man. I think you know something that perhaps you shouldn't hmm?"

I was confused. "And what exactly is it I am not allowed to know?" As if there should be anything of the sort. I made it my life's duty to make everything my business and nobody was going to tell me otherwise, especially some old man.

"My boy, you must be careful when dealing with forces beyond your control. Who knows what you may end up becoming involved in, hmm?"

"It's a bit late for that kind of talk, Doctor." I laughed.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed suspiciously and I wondered if he knew, really knew who I was. He cleared his throat. "What is your Christian name, Mr. Gray?"

"It's Dorian."

He took a moment to think. "I see. Your parents were either very clever or very cruel hmmm?"

And he continued to stare at me as though he could see right through, as though my eyes were vessels and if he looked just that bit hard enough he would see perfectly clearly that the soul he searched for within me would not be found.

He chuckled infectiously for a moment and it made me smile.

"I was with Mr. Wilde once you know," he said, "looked over one of his first drafts as a matter of fact. Oscar was a very intriguing fellow."

Wonderful. I'd encountered a fantasist, some fraud who believed he was best friends with my Mr. Wilde and gave him an idea over a cup of tea and a scone. Everyone was friends with Oscar apparently.

I humoured him, nodded along in that way you do when older people are talking and repeating themselves. "And what exactly is it you want, Doctor? You still haven't told me what you want with me."

He looked at me again, deep into my eyes and for the briefest of moments I shuddered.

"I shall say two words, young Mr. Gray, two words...dust and creature." He chuckled unexpectedly.

How had he known? I had wrestled with that particular demon or creature or whatever it was, hours earlier. It was some kind of 'dust being' a being made of dirt and smoke and soot like a foggy Victorian industrial-town monster wreaking havoc in the cloak room of the men's club. It felt like it was choking me for pleasure, and I gasped for breath as it wrapped tighter and tighter around my throat. Inconveniently it had killed me. But naturally as I always did I came back, untainted and unscathed by this horror. Meanwhile my portrait took its full lashing, showcasing the brunt of the horror I came face to face with.

The dust creature had caught the interest of this white haired Doctor or maybe the creature had taken the interest in him.

And that was how I met the Doctor, the original body, the real untainted body, the one that was oh so young despite what appearance told me. And yes, appearances can be so very deceiving.

But in 2009 the dust creature has evolved somewhat and the Doctor and I, the new Doctor and I anyway, are running for our lives from a demon creature that can destroy anything in its path. We find safety as we reach the end of the street and we're hiding. I look at him and I laugh. His hair is so upright as though he's seen a ghost but to look at me perhaps he has for I look no different from the last time he saw me nearly forty years earlier.

On that occasion it was 1973 and it was encounter number two with the mysterious alien wanderer they called the Doctor.

I of course did not suspect by his appearance that we were acquainted. He stood by the side of the road in a velvet jacket and a frilled shirt. Behind him was a car like no other I had seen- bright yellow and eccentric, just like the man who owned it. Despite the fact he looked different there was some part of me that felt I knew him, as though there was some link between us and I found myself crossing the road to see what he was up to.

And he knew me as soon as he saw me.

"Young Dorian," he said sticking out his leather gloved hand, "forever young Dorian."

I eyed him with caution, after all what exactly was he doing at the side of the country lane?

"Have we met before?"

"I'm the Doctor," he said with a knowing glance and it didn't take long for me to feel the shiver go down my spine. He was taller, he was fitter, he was more of a dandy but the eyes were hard upon me and they felt the same, behind it all. It had to be him- the mysterious man, the alien, the being from another world or other dimension?

"And you're stalking me for certain this time," I replied with humour. "Surely dinner first would have been kinder."

"Yes, well, dear fellow, it isn't me you should be concerned about. Some things have grown since we last met in 1909."

I looked at him. "And some people have changed faces."

He rubbed his chin with his hand. "Yes, right, you noticed that, I suspected you would ask about it. I wonder whether you really care to know that's all."

"Not really."

He looked at me. "Still the same Dorian then?"

Truth was I was the tiniest bit curious so I asked as plainly as I could, you know, to make it sound as though I wasn't bothered by it.

"You change your face then? How does that work?"

He smiled. "Well it's not only you who can keep going my dear fellow."

This version of him or whatever he was was a little softer in his manner but still held that air of authority.

"When I die, there's this process I go through, regeneration...means I can carry on, albeit with a different body."

"Isn't that cheating?"

"Well, look who I'm talking to old chap."

I flashed him a smile. I flirted a little for some reason, don't know why but it felt natural. "Ah yes, but did you sell your soul to keep going?"

"I didn't."

"You don't get to choose your appearance?"

The Doctor looked down at himself and frowned. "What exactly are you getting at my dear fellow? We can't all stay as young and beautiful as the infamous Dorian Gray, can we?"

It was strange though. Both of us I mean, being eternal and long-living and experiencing life long after everyone around us died and became the earth and soil. He could change his whole body and I could stay youthful forever. We'd found a way of cheating it all.

Why we hide I'm not entirely certain. The newer Doctor and I could hardly feel the same fear as the mortals, the innocent ones who run away when the dust creature grows around us and swallows everything it finds in its path, choking and choking until there is no longer breath. Nevertheless even now, even after all this time and all the pain- there was some fear, apprehension, caution perhaps, guilt? Had I among all the other things, unleashed this being upon the world to stalk me and had I condemned everyone around me to be sucked into its demonic hold?

He looks at me, the newer Doctor, the tall skinny one with the sticky up hair and I laugh. He too has found a way to embrace youth. The years have passed and time has made its mark on the inside of him but now, now he is younger and somewhat handsome, a tad cheekier and sprightlier. Was it by choice he chose to bear this face?

"Dorian, I have to get to my TARDIS, I need to get the thing-a-ma-jig from the what's-a-ma-thing."

This newer Doctor doesn't have the eloquence of his previous selves. The youthful looks but how very disappointing that his vocabulary is so un-romantic.

"Am I not invited?" I want to see this place he calls TARDIS.

He looks at me with uncertainty. "I don't think that's a good idea, Dorian. The world is already so enticing to you. You're so easily tempted."

"Spoil sport."

I flirt and he never notices. It's not even that I see the Doctor, any of them in that way, but then it's always a challenge and always enticing to find someone who is more like me. He understands me more than those ordinary ones who flock about their day to day lives, ageing and ageing, unable to take risks for fear they will die.

"Dorian, this creature is feeding on everything, its consuming time. It knows you're wrong."

I laugh. How preposterous.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Dorian, but this being is after you. He wants you much more than he wants all the others in its way. "

"So they're the entree and I'm the main course?"

He isn't impressed. From his face I see how each and every poor soul who is lost and taken is heartbreaking to him. A longer life may have made him used to death but not numb to it.

"I wish I knew what it was you want me to do, Doctor. I have attracted some creature but it cannot have me because I cannot give it what it wants."

The Doctor rubs his chin and he starts to think. His tongue clicks in his mouth several times and he looks like he's about to say something but he doesn't and he instead sticks his finger in the air as if to check which way the wind is blowing. I confess at times each version of this strange Doctor rather irks me, no matter how wonderful he is.

"Is that helping?"

"Just checking something."

I shrug. "I want to know why it keeps coming back anyway. Why does it follow me even after I defeat it?"

"Wait a minute!" He suddenly starts shouting and I'm nearly knocked off my feet by his voice screaming at me that he should have known. He keeps saying 'Oh yes' and I momentarily want to hit him and then kiss him.

"Well would you mind explaining it?"

"Think back to when I was me, the younger me."

"Which one?"

"Velvet jacket, I had a car."

"Ah that one."

And I remember again. I start picturing him and within minutes his face is in my mind and the whole day we met almost plays before me like a motion picture.

"Run, Doctor!" I shouted as the dust creature crept up on him from behind. We were in broad daylight and yet no-one could help us as we ran along the deserted landscape of the countryside of god knows where. We must have been in one of those ghastly villages with nothing to do no doubt.

We ran to the Doctor's garish yellow car that he calls Bessie and I aimed to climb inside the driver's seat.

"I always drive!" he said with an almighty force.

"No need to shout," I replied before begrudgingly climbing inside the passenger seat instead.

But we didn't get the chance to travel as the dust creature had gained on us and I saw the shadow of something before I even saw the monster, and within minutes I was surrounded, caught up in a tornado, dust and particles flying around me. I couldn't breathe as it began to choke me.

I lost sight of the Doctor in that moment and all I knew was I couldn't stay conscious, it was killing me and I soon faded into blackness. It had killed me for a second time, whatever 'it' was, it had surrounded me where I stood and taken the life from me, slowly and without a struggle.

It was frustrating to be defeated so easily even if I could never succumb in the way others did. When I awoke I saw the Doctor's face looking down at me and above us a beautiful blue sky clear of any clouds. It was as though nothing had been there at all, no billowing smoke around and no sign of any darkness or blackness or smog- just him. I was laying on the ground, gasping for breath and his blue eyes were looking at me with concern. It was always concern with him. When his earlier self knew of my dealing with the dust creature he had shown concern for me and it was the same look.

He helped me to my feet and I started to regain my energy. I took a deep breath and suddenly the smell of the countryside invaded my nostrils. The Doctor shook his head.

"My dear chap, you had a miraculous escape, it seems it has vanished into thin air."

"How convenient."

"Whatever it was, it was after you alright, Dorian."

"Story of my life, Doctor."

"Do you want it to be?"

I didn't know how to answer. Had I wished this upon myself? I had sold my soul. I had chosen this path. What did I want my story to be and did it even matter?

"I ought to get Bessie back to UNIT HQ and then I can run some tests on the sample I collected."

I laughed. "You had time in the midst of that to collect a sample?"

"I've always got time for such things. Where would you like to be dropped off?"

"You mean I'm not invited to your HQ?"

"I don't think that's a very good idea, do you?"

He looked at me like they all did when they knew. He was scared of what I was or worse scared of what I might be. He was so self-assured too, even though he was unlike anyone else around him, superior to all the other beings he loved and protected. He was different. I wondered how long it'd take him to work out how similar we were to each other, whether he wanted to see it or not.

But he didn't want to get close. It's clear he knew there was darkness in me. I wondered if he ever saw the light.

In any case I was not invited.

"And what of my first incarnation?"

He's looking at me again, the sticky-up hair Doctor and he's suddenly got glasses on and he's peering at me strangely, his eyes magnified under the lenses.

I move away from his gaze. "What about him?"

"He knew you defeated the dust monster didn't he?"

"Aren't you the same man so why are you asking?"

He cocked his head. "Well...it was a long time ago. I can't remember everything I did."

"But you expect me to remember something that happened a hundred years ago?"

"A hundred years for you, hundreds for me."

And he's serious. He really has been living for hundreds of years making my one hundred or-so look pitiful and pathetic in comparison, and I'm struck with a ludicrous and peculiar jealousy. His life span makes mine look like an infant.

And so I think back to when I met him the first time, perhaps as a means to escape the envy I felt.

He was sitting in that leather wingback chair and he had a delicate china cup balancing on it.

"My dear boy, did you or did you not encounter it?"

"The dust cloud that choked me? Yes, I encountered it. You're familiar with it?"

"It nearly choked myself and my companions earlier today if that's what you mean? My dear granddaughter and my young companion Chesterton are recovering from it. A young woman also travels with me but she was lucky enough to escape unharmed."

"I don't understand what that has to do with me. I'm sorry your friends were hurt."

"The creature seemed to move right over us, beyond us and there it headed into your direction. When I arrived to check what had happened, it had vanished into thin air as though it had never existed."

"Perhaps it's a freak of nature," I replied.

"I doubt that dear boy, no. I believe it's from beyond this world of yours."

I thought for a moment about the fact he had said the world was mine and not his. What did that make him exactly?

I didn't have time to question him as at that moment a woman joined us at the table. She was not giving anything away as she glanced at me.

"My dear," the Doctor said. "This is Dorian Gray, the man we followed earlier this morning."

She looked shocked for a moment but also a little amused. "Dorian Gray?"

"You've heard of me?"

Of course she had. Everyone had heard of me.

She smiled warmly. "I didn't mean to be rude, Mr. Gray, just surprised that's all."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "This is my companion Barbara Wright, a fine teacher in the studies of history."

I sneered. "I have no interest in what happened before, only what happens next."

She seemed slightly offended, folding her arms in a rigid manner. "Mr. Gray, without our history we can't have a 'what happens next'. The choices we all make affect the choices we make in the future."

That was true enough. I was living proof of one choice, one single choice having some interesting consequences.

She was an engaging and intelligent woman and she had a kindness too which was a quality I rarely surrounded myself with.

"Mr. Gray appears to be entangled in this strange phenomenon in one way or another," the Doctor told her, "but without the strange being around to examine, I'm afraid there is nothing I can do."

"Perhaps it's dead," I said.

"Perhaps," he said, pursing his lips together and then staring at me with concern, "but then again not everything is easy to kill."

"So we're going to leave without knowing for sure?" Barbara said. She wasn't certain of his plan.

"My dear, we can't wait around for decades in case it shows up. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll come across it again if we have to. You be careful young Dorian Gray hmmm?"

"So I knew back then it might be back, funny forgetting a little thing like that."

The newer Doctor looks at me and then runs his hands through his hair until it's a complete mess, like a mad scientist in an untidy laboratory.

"So what are you saying exactly?"

We make our way towards his time and space-ship and when we get there I laugh when he arrives at two doors of a tiny blue police-box. I remember the police-boxes from the old days and I'm surprised to see one. I'm even more surprised when he gets out a key and begins to unlock the door.

"This is your ship?" I laugh again. I can barely believe it.

He seems offended and pushes the doors open with his hand. He leans against the wood casually and tips his head. "You can see inside if you like."

"I know you'd like to get close, Doctor, but it may be a bit too intimate in there."

"Never take things at face value."

I nod and I follow him through the doors like one of those children walking through that magical wardrobe to Narnia and instead of another land and a lion, I see a large room, massive in fact, bigger on the inside with an eerie green glow resonating through the space. There's a large console in the middle and partitions everywhere in strange shapes. It is certainly alien and I can barely find the words to describe such a sight. It's almost as beautiful as I am but it's much older and makes a peculiar noise. Not that I don't make funny noises on occasion but that's a different story.

"You like it?" he asks.

"I do. It's very...you."

"How so?"

"Looks a bit wimpy at first sight but holds power within."

"Wimpy, really?" He looks down at his thin physique in that brown pinstripe suit and he's offended again.

I feel guilty. "Can I look around?" I say to lighten the mood.

"I suppose so but be careful. Don't wander into restricted areas. Don't fall down something or on something and just mind your head."

And I don't know about you, but if one thing's for certain when someone tells you not to enter a restricted area, what are you going to do but enter a restricted area? When life is as long as mine its almost criminal not to, isn't it?

I find a small room with junk covering the door so naturally I remove it so I can enter. This Doctor isn't very what I would call refined, in fact he's all too eager to please the current age. The decor is very 'kitsch' is that the word? Everything reflects his need to fit in with his companions. He has collected a load of useless items and I find myself longing for my own study.

As I look around at things that hold no interest I'm suddenly drawn to something very different. On the wall, obscured by a long curtain is a portrait of some kind in a grand gold frame. I approach slowly and pull the fabric away.

It's the Doctor- the first one anyway, though he looks young, less grey. He's handsome, less wrinkles, dressed in beautiful red orange robes. He looks like a king. And I think of my own portrait, the way it once looked before it bared all the scars I now should. I shudder. A painting says a thousand words and this one tells me the Doctor is ancient and forever, powerful and strong and influential.

But he is also kind, much kinder than me. Had I forgotten kindness or was it reserved for those rare few I loved and cherished- Tobias, James, Dorothy, others whose faces were now but a blur in my mind?

I hear the Doctor's voice calling me from the main room and so I walk back to meet him. I choose not to mention the painting and what it all means. He's at the console looking satisfied with himself and running around it gleefully.  
It's quite something to see. For someone so old he has quite a childlike wonder about things.

"You've come by a solution?" I ask, chasing after him until I'm dizzy.

"Not as such."

"Helpful." I'm really not in the mood for this at the moment. I shrug and then think. Not much comes to mind really. It's full of other thoughts like music, art, sex and war. It isn't really thinking about how to defeat dust creatures. But he's looking at me like I should know. "I could always let it eat me again." I sigh, not really relishing it but seeing little other option.

"Oh Dorian, Dorian, Dorian, don't you see how stupid that would be?"

"And why not? It got rid of the cretin last time didn't it? Think it quite enjoyed it actually."

"That's the reason not to let it eat you."

"Come again?"

"Don't you see that the more you let it feed on you the stronger it becomes?"

"But it vanished each and every time I died."

"Yes and then it appears again because..."

I slapped myself. I was so stupid. "Because I appear again! It comes alive because I come alive."

"It's a creature from another world that has used you as a model of how to survive. The more it feeds on you, the more it gets power and can kill more and more people."

I laugh. I'm not sure why but I often laugh when I shouldn't. How was I supposed to react to the news that if I didn't defeat it, that it would continue to grow stronger and kill? It felt like it was becoming somewhat of a tradition for me, to be hunted, sought after, desired. How exactly was I supposed to banish such an enemy? Was it a case of 'I die permanently, it dies permanently'? That didn't sound so fun.

"So how do we defeat it?"

"I guess it's up to me Dorian. I'll have to lure it with the promise of you and I'll take it back to a time where it can no longer find you...or anyone else for that matter. Once it can't feed it should fade. I can check up on it at various points. That's the good thing about being a mobile traveller."

"Then we better do it quickly before I go out there and it devours me for a third time. Let's just hope it hasn't devoured anyone else in the meantime."

But I don't think about that much, never do and being thrown into action saves me from having to. We walk to the doors, we exit and it's already heading our way. At the end of the street, people are running and though the strange being has no eyes it seems to be staring at me somehow.

"Dinnertime!"

The Doctor is shouting in a ridiculous baby voice, pointing at me as I'm the one on the menu it really wants. We wait and the monster slowly finds its way towards the TARDIS. When it reaches the doors we run inside and the Doctor flicks one single switch on his console and just inside the door it is like the smoky creature is frozen mid-air, caught in some invisible trap. I gaze at it for a few moments. I've never really seen it properly before. It is quite beautiful like the sky after a thunderstorm. It stays frozen momentarily and then the Doctor initiates some sort of transfer and it disappears before my eyes, not dead, just moved from one space to another, to somewhere safe in the Doctor's ship, somewhere where it can be taken elsewhere.

And he leaves me in the street outside where he goes off to do what he does best. And I'm alone again.

I wonder if we'll meet again. I suppose it's entirely possible and I wonder which face it'll be if we do. For now I stare down the street where the creature passed along and vanished inside a time and space machine. And everything feels silent. It's lonely and I feel it more than ever now that the Doctor has gone. For a brief while I had been in the company of a man who was one of the closest to understanding.

There's a pub just there and I have no idea where I am but it calls me. And after the day I've had who would begrudge me the need to get terribly drunk? It's not like my hangover would show in my face, for its not I who bear the years of neglect and toil but instead that dusty old picture of me hanging in an attic.

I am so old and I need a drink.


End file.
